40 Years A Prisoner: In The Louisiana Penal System by Billy Wayne Sinclair

• Author:
• Billy Wayne Sinclair

40 Years a Prisoner in the Louisiana Penal System is an autobiographical story written by an extraordinary Death Row inmate who became a jailhouse lawyer and a nationally and internationally celebrated award-winning prison journalist. Billy Sinclair was a leader in carrying out the non-violent integration of Angola in 1973 at a time when the prison was horribly violent. He became an FBI whistleblower, exposing the largest pardons-selling scheme in Louisiana history. Sinclair risked his life taking on powerful officials to expose corruption, murder, and sexual abuse in the Louisiana prison system.

Death penalty activist Sister Helen Prejean has said Billy Sinclair is the “model argument” against the death penalty, and Rafael Goyeneche, president of the New Orleans Metropolitan Crime Commission, has said Sinclair is the standard by which penal rehabilitation should be measured.

40 Years a Prisoner provides the reader with a penetrating insight into the deplorable human conditions found in a prison system ruled by violence and corruption. It is the story of how one man rose from the bowels of a death cell to become, against all odds and at great personal risk, one of the most acclaimed, successful, and respected inmates in Louisiana penal history.

40 Years a Prisoner is a story that begs to be told and discussed in all social and criminal justice arenas.